{"id":300,"date":"2014-06-10T18:29:33","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T18:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/?p=300"},"modified":"2017-05-26T17:46:32","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T17:46:32","slug":"hossain-rokeya-sakhawat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/2014\/06\/10\/hossain-rokeya-sakhawat\/","title":{"rendered":"Hossain, Rokeya Sakhawat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biography<\/h3>\n
\"begum_rokeya\"<\/a>
Image by Ragib\/Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born into a Bengali\u00a0Muslim upper-class family in the small village of Pairaband in the district\u00a0of Rangpur, north of present day Bangladesh, then a part of the colonial\u00a0British province of Bengal Presidency. Her date of birth is not known.\u00a0However, a nephew of hers posits Dec. 9, 1880.<\/p>\n

Her mother was Rahatunnessa Sabera Chowdhurani, the first of four wives.\u00a0Not much is known of her except that she strictly followed purdah as Rokeya\u00a0mentioned in dedicating to her\u00a0The Secluded Ones<\/em>, some humorous\u00a0essays that expose some ridiculous consequences of the practice of Purdah (see Women, Islam and the Hijab<\/a>).\u00a0Her father was Zahiruddin Mohammad Abu Ali Saber, a well-educated, influential\u00a0landowner whose massive estate was a stronghold for the traditional way\u00a0of life. Rokeya had two brothers (Abul Asad Ibrahim Saber and Khalilur\u00a0Rahman Abu Jaigam Saber) and two sisters (Karimunessa and Humaira). Being\u00a0boys, her brothers were first educated at home (as was the tradition) then\u00a0sent to St. Xavier\u2019s, one of Calcutta\u2019s most prestigious colleges. Rokeya\u00a0and her sisters only received traditional education at home. As it was\u00a0the tradition in high-class Muslim families, girls learned to read Arabic\u00a0(so as to be able to read the Koran) and Urdu (in order to read the popular\u00a0books on \u201cfeminine\u201d conduct). They were kept from learning Bengali\u00a0and English precisely because they were spoken by non-Muslims as well.\u00a0This was one way of keeping these women from being \u201ccontaminated\u201d\u00a0by the radical ideas from outside their religio-economic group. Going against\u00a0the grain, Rokeya\u2019s oldest brother, who was exposed to Western education,\u00a0was in favor of educating women. He secretly taught Rokeya English and\u00a0Bengali at home (see Gender and Nation<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In 1896, Ibrahim was instrumental in the family marrying off Rokeya\u00a0at age 16 to a widower in his late 30\u2032s, Syed Sakhawat Hossain, who was\u00a0then a district magistrate in the Bihar region of Bengal Presidency. Ibrahim\u00a0was impressed with Syed\u2019s open-mindedness. Syed was educated both locally\u00a0and in London. Rokeya and her husband settled in Bhagalpur, Bihar. None\u00a0of her children lived. Syed, who was convinced that the education of women\u00a0was the best way to cure the ills of his society, encouraged his willing\u00a0wife to write, and set aside 10,000 rupees to start a school for Muslim\u00a0women. In 1909, 11 years after they had been married, Syed died and Rokeya\u00a0immediately started the school in Bhagalpur in his memory.<\/p>\n

In 1910, a feud over family property with her step-daughter\u2019s husband\u00a0caused her to close down the school in Bhagalpur, abandon her house, and\u00a0move to Calcutta where she re-opened the Sakhawat Memorial Girls\u2019 School\u00a0on March 16, 1911. The number of students went from 8 in 1911 to 84 in\u00a01915. In 1917, the school was inspected by Lady Chelmsford, wife of the\u00a0Governor General and Vicerory of India. After that, prominent people supported\u00a0the school. By 1930, the school had evolved into a high school (10 grades)\u00a0where Bengali and English were regular courses. In Calcutta, she became\u00a0very involved in civil affairs. In 1916, she founded the Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam,\u00a0Bangla (Bengali Muslim Women\u2019s Association). In 1926, Rokeya presided over\u00a0the Bengal Women\u2019s Education Conference held in Calcutta. She was active\u00a0in debates and conferences concerning the advancement of women until her\u00a0death in December 9, 1932, shortly after presiding over a session during\u00a0the Indian Women\u2019s Conference in Aligarh. Her death was grieved by many\u00a0male and female Hindu and Muslim activists, including educators as well\u00a0as liberal leaders of her country. In December of 1932, Rokeya was working\u00a0on an essay entitled\u00a0Narir Adhikar<\/em>\u00a0(The Rights of Women<\/em>)\u00a0which remained unfinished (see Third World and Third World Women<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Her legacy is that of a Muslim woman who was born and raised in purdah.\u00a0Yet, she was able to rise beyond the limitations that her society placed\u00a0upon her. With the help of her \u201cliberal\u201d brother and husband,\u00a0she was not only able to write (in Bengali and English) but took significant\u00a0steps to educate the women in her country.<\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/h3>\n
    \n
  • Hossain, Rokeya Sakhawat.\u00a0Avarodhbasini<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cThe Secluded Ones\u201d). Calcutta: Mohammadi\u00a0Book Agency. Dedicated to Ammajan Rahatunnessa Sabera Chowdhurani. Also\u00a0appeared as a series of columns in the\u00a0Monthly Mohammadi<\/em>, 1928-30.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014. Motichur, Part 1<\/em>. Calcutta: Gurudas Chattopadhyaya & Sons. A collection of articles published from 1903-4 in various journals.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>Motichur, Part 2<\/em>. Calcutta: Mrs. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. Dedicated to Apajan Karimunessa Khanam.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0Oborodhbashini<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cThe woman in captivity\u201d)<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0Paddorag<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cEssence of the Lotus\u201d)<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>Rokeya Racanavali<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cCollected Works of Rokeya\u201d). Ed.\u00a0Abdul Quadir. Dhaka: Bangla Academy.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>Sultana\u2019s Dream<\/em>.\u00a0Calcutta: S. K. Lahiri & Co. Originally published in\u00a0The Indian Ladies\u2019 Magazine<\/em>, Madras, 1905. Originally written in English and translated by the author into Bengali. Perhaps the first piece of utopian literature to be written in that country.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014. Sultana\u2019s Dream and Selections from The Secluded Ones<\/em>. Ed. and\u00a0trans. by Roushan Jahan. Afterword by Hanna Papanek. New York: The Feminist\u00a0Press.<\/li>\n
  • \u201cRokeya Sakhawat Hossain.\u201d in\u00a0Women Writing In India. Vol.\u00a0I: 600 B.C. to the Early 20th Century<\/em>. Eds. Susie Tharu and K. Lalita.\u00a0New York: The Feminist Press.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Comments<\/h3>\n

    1. Feminism is indigenous in roots as opposed to foreign influence.\u00a0Although male support of indigenous feminist sentiments seems to be more\u00a0common among the formally-educated (locally and abroad). Rokeya herself says that if she had not had her brother and husband\u2019s support, she would\u00a0not have been able to write and contribute to the advancement of Muslim\u00a0women in her country.<\/p>\n

    2. In the personal life of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, writing and activism\u00a0were intertwined. The connection between these has, however, increasingly\u00a0become difficult in the world of academia.<\/p>\n

    3. Rokeya did not reject veiling altogether as she herself wore a veil.\u00a0She advocated modesty and said that veiling should not be in a manner that\u00a0would hinder education for women. Her primary concern was formal education for women. For Rokeya, women (veiled or unveiled) need to be self-sufficient.\u00a0And in order to get support from men in her country, she argued that women\u00a0become better \u201chome-managers\u201d when educated. However, her ultimate\u00a0goal was that women, and particularly Muslim women in her country, would\u00a0reach their fullest potentials as human beings, would be able to pursue\u00a0their own interests rather than relying on the men in their lives for their\u00a0well-being.<\/p>\n

    As it is often the case, feminist literature is used many times by male\u00a0leaders not to advance women\u2019s causes but to unite both sexes against colonial\u00a0and imperialistic powers. Unfortunately for women, when their country gains independence and the society reinstates its traditions, their interests\u00a0once again get relegated to the background. Subsequently, gender oppression,\u00a0already present in customs, is reinforced. No doubt, this sort of process was taking place during the partitioning of India in 1947, when Pakistan\u00a0gained its independence, and in 1971, when Bengladesh declared its autonomy.<\/p>\n

    Author: Dolores Yilibuw, Fall 1996
    \nLast edited:\u00a0May 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Biography Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born into a Bengali\u00a0Muslim upper-class family in the small village of Pairaband in the district\u00a0of Rangpur, north of present day Bangladesh, then a part of the colonial\u00a0British province of Bengal Presidency. Her date of birth is not known.\u00a0However, a nephew of hers posits Dec. 9, 1880. Her mother was Rahatunnessa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,65,13,38,28,88,36,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-authors-and-artists","7":"tag-class","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-feminism","10":"tag-gender","11":"tag-india","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-religion","14":"tag-social-protest"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paWL6U-4Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2781,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/2781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}